Union Made's HARD GRACE reviewed on Quebec Hardcore News

"Here's a Montreal band that doesn't seem to be getting the credit it deserves. For example, they should be opening for the upcoming Agnostic Front shows in Canada, but they're not. [ed: they actually were!] You hardly ever seen them on the shows listing or being talked about on message boards. On the other hand, maybe the members of Union Made are too busy for shows and stuff; but they sure weren't too busy to work on this excellent debut full-length.

It may strike you as odd that a new band has a full-length for a debut, but the fact is that Union Made has a long history of being a band under a different moniker: Fate 2 Hate. It seems the guys wanted to take their band in a sligthly different direction, as well as maybe renew people's interest by rising from their own ashes; I can respect that. But overall the feeling I get while listening to Union Made is pretty much the same as I used to get when playing Fate 2 Hate, which is to say a pretty good one.

The guys obviously have their roots directly in classic NYHC territory. Agnostic Front, Madball, Cro-Mags and even the whole straight-edge wing (YOT, Judge, Bold) influenced these guys to no end when growing up. At the same time, there is a huge skinhead / street punk aura that comes from the lyrics, the attitude and the general upbringings of this band. The two pretty much come hand-in-hand however, so they're only paying tribute to the genre.

Hard Grace is a fairly long LP by underground standards: close to 30 minutes of revolutionary hardcore. The songs featured on it are what you would expect from this band, no big surprises. My favorite parts have got to be the sing alongs that make up most of the endings to these songs. The good news is that none of the songs sound too much like each other, the album has a great flow. The recording is pretty solid, good mix too, but maybe a little too compressed overall. Unfortunately I'm definitely not a fan of the cover and most of the interior art and layout.

Some of the better songs on this record include: Hard Grace with its sweet tempo changes towards the end, Products with great lyrics attacking bling bling rebels and highly melodic; finally the second-to-last Back It Up features some of the best politically-correct lyrics I've read in hardcore for a long time. I'll leave it up to you to discover them and see what I'm talking about. Besides, you should be buying this CD next time Union Made drop by your town because they are a local band and need all the support they can get!"

QCHC.com

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